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Topic: Sigma Launches the Sigma USB DOCK (Read 18013 times)

Final comment: I don't get some of the thinking on this thread at all. This is a puck to reprogram lenses - how often are you going to do that? How many people are actually going to buy one? Is going into OSX or Windows that much of a pain for that twice a lifetime event? Seriously?

Every platform introduces a plateful of bugs, especially Linux which is highly fragmented and backwards compatibility is not as much a concern as it is for Apple & Microsoft. I would have been surprised if they had released on it, not that they hadn't.

Final comment: I don't get some of the thinking on this thread at all. This is a puck to reprogram lenses - how often are you going to do that? How many people are actually going to buy one? Is going into OSX or Windows that much of a pain for that twice a lifetime event? Seriously?

What they should do is have the option of a toggle switch on the data line and a debounced pushbutton on the clock line to make it OS agnostic.

Actually, considering that OSX and Linux are very similar under the hood (both are flavors of unix)

But MacOSX is BSD and Linux is, well, Linux - the unix versions have split decades ago and are often very different, just because they both use a forward slash for directories and run gcc doesn't mean much for porting software, esp. if it relies on hardware features like usb.

I very much doubt the decision to not develop a Linux version has anything to do with the technical aspects. Using the correct foundation cross-development can be done fairly cost-effectively. What I think is that Sigma (this is what I would do) wants to cover as wide a user-base they can with as few options as they can. Developing a Linux version means they are also liable to provide support for it and have the appropriate staff available and trained, both developers and support staff. It's just not worth the expense and effort for the minimal user base. If the user base was 15-30%, then things would be different.After all, Sigma wants to make money even if us nerds think that should be secondary.

The new 120-300 also looks really nice. I didn't get to hold it, but I did play with the previous version and it wasn't bad! Certainly for HALF the cost of the current Canon it should be a good deal.

I've been using the new 35 1.4 and I've got to say I'm impressed with the new sigma stuff. This is my first Sigma lens I've owned as wasn't overly convinced about the earlier stuff, but so far it's great! I'm definitely going to be considering the dock when it's released, assuming the price isn't too much, and I get more than just firmware updates and AF speed.

The 130-300 OS was a curious beast. It's big and heavy, it's AF was quite fast...but like a lot of Siggi lenses....very erratic performance. It was sharp, when it's AF performed but it's no where in the AF league of the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS II. But here's the kicker....it's not really a 300mm lens, at infinity it's more like a 280mm which is quite short of the claimed 300mm. But the worse news is that as the focus draws in to MFD, it's focal length drops appallingly to around 240mm....which is where I would usually want to shoot with this lens. So in my opinion, it's size bulk and cost isn't justifyable over a Canon 70-200. It's a nice lens, but very dissapointing in real world use. If you want a 300mm f2.8, look for a good used Canon copy.

The 35mm f1.4 looks like a nice lens, but I've had it with Siggi lenses. I've owned a lot of them over the years but I've come to the conclusion that one gets what one pays for.

120-300mm's AF performance has been pretty consistent for me on a 7D. When it hunts, that's generally due to very low lighting or me hitting the AF-ON button when peering through tangles of branches.

I'm actually interested in this thing - I hope it is compatible with the "original" 120-300mm OS, although I would not be too hopeful that it will get firmware updates from the "new" 120-300mm OS (with the focus limiter switch).